


Lakas at Pag-ibig

by spideysmjs



Series: Make This Feel Like Home [2]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Canon Compliant, Drabble and a Half, F/M, Food is a love language, Friendship, Gen, Michelle Jones Needs a Hug, Ned Leeds Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/pseuds/spideysmjs
Summary: Ned sighs, stomach churning with dread, no longer wanting to turn on the game, yet still spam clicking his favorite server to join to escape from the relentless, unwarranted anxieties from the news.He didn’t even get to say goodbye.A moment between Ned and Michelle; a moment of love, strength, and hope.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds & Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Michelle Jones
Series: Make This Feel Like Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027044
Comments: 30
Kudos: 35





	Lakas at Pag-ibig

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this for the longest time, ever since they announced that Ned's family might be in the third movie. Now, we have stills of OT3 and a title, and I needed to put it out there.
> 
> The title translates to, "Strength and Love."
> 
> _Other Translations:_
> 
> Nanay: Mother  
> Tatay: Father  
> Buhay lang yan, anak: That's just life, my child.  
> Bahala na: Okay, fine.  
> Ang lakas si MJ: MJ's very strong.  
> Parang ang revolution ito: It's like a revolution.  
> Ano yan, anak?: What was that, my child?  
> Bahala ka sa buhay mo: Do whatever you want with your life.

Ned slouches in his computer chair after coming home from school, craving any ounce of normalcy as he logs onto _Beast Slayer_ online, begging his own mind from not collapsing at the million _what if_ ’s that come as daggers into his brain. 

The video game doesn’t feel the same without seeing the green bubble next to Peter’s tag light up. He chuckles to himself, thinking that—if there’s anything he should _already_ be used to—Peter being offline due to some Spider-Man crisis is the one thing out of all of this that should feel like real life. 

He sighs, stomach churning with dread, no longer wanting to turn on the game, yet still spam clicking his favorite server to join to escape from the relentless, unwarranted anxieties from the news. 

He didn’t even get to say goodbye. 

Ned turned on the news, saw the twisted words coming out of J. Jonah Jameson’s mouth ran to his room to try to connect to Peter’s suit with his original hacking code, but all he could hear was static. He never thought he’d be mad at Peter for being too smart, too quick to adapt to a situation, but one thing Ned wishes Peter would be too good at is not letting the heaviness of his identity rip him away from the people who believe in him the most.

There’s nothing, Ned understands, that could have allowed Peter to stall his escape to the safe house. It just isn’t fair. None of this feels fair for Ned: losing his best friend for a period of time, not knowing when he’ll return, not knowing _if_ he’ll…

Ned shudders. The screen flashes bright green and purple with the character grid scattered across the window. He selects Peter’s main, the one Ned would always make fun of him for, with Peter returning a scoff and saying, “Sometimes strength is not everything there is to a _good_ character on _Beast Slayer_!” 

“You just like Merlara’s story-mode because it has a love story,” Ned would tease him, back when Peter’s crush on MJ was just that. 

“Well, strength and love is a good combination, Nedward.”

“Don’t call me that. Only MJ can call me that.”

Ned blinks rapidly, only then noticing the tears that trail down his face from the nostalgia he can’t escape—these spiraling moments becoming more and more apparent as weeks pass.

One month of Peter being gone is already too much, but in _high school_ time, it's past forever. 

And it’s not just Peter being gone. 

It’s Peter being accused. Peter being talked about among the entire campus. Peter loses his friends that are too blinded by fake news to look at the facts or listen to Ned and MJ. 

He misses MJ too, every day when he has to leave school because Happy advised them to minimize contact with each other so they could lower the speculation that they’re in kahoots with the murderer, Spider-Man.

They still text though, and sometimes, like tonight as Ned rapidly fires his amo at his enemies, she’ll log on as _blackdahlia_ on their FOS server—the one Ned created right when they got home from Europe because someone else his age finally found out (figured out) Spider-Man. 

She enters the chat. 

_“Nedward?”_ she says, her voice trembling already, a sound that he’s gotten used to since she came home from her date with Peter, his heartbreaking every time he realizes that she didn’t know what she would be walking into when they landed back down from their swing. 

It was an innocent date, one that Peter couldn’t stop panicking about leading up to it. Ned had calmed him down and said, “Dude. You literally stopped London from being destroyed. You can take a girl on a date. You can do _anything_ at this point.”

“Hey, MJ,” he says into his microphone. 

_“Hey.”_ He continues to play his game, the silence comforting him in a way that he knows comforts MJ all the same. “ _Beast Slayer?”_

“Always.”

“ _Merlara?”_

He shifts in his chair. “Yeah.”

 _“Thanks for telling me that story,”_ she chuckles, so low that Ned almost has to concentrate to listen to her. _“I think if Peter found out you did, he’d be so embarrassed.”_

“But when does Peter not embarrass himself in front of you?”

 _“You’re right,”_ she says. 

Merlara gets seven kills in one round, but the overwhelming presence that MJ brings makes Ned lose focus. He logs off the game and stays on the chat. 

“You doing homework?”

_“Trying. Too distracted.”_

“Fuck it,” Ned jokes. “We’re leaving anyway. They should have stopped the existence of homework after we all dusted away and missed literally five years. There are more things that are important than passing U.S. History.”

_“The history of the past five years has been hard to catch up on for sure. Especially when you didn’t live them.”_

A beat. Ned says, “You’re smart though, MJ. You probably caught on pretty quick.”

_“Thanks.”_

And these nights are just _this_ all the time. Quiet back and forth. Jokes about Peter, and the silence that follows when they remember that he’s been disconnected from them. And more often these nights, ideas of running away together and finding their best friend. 

Some nights, there’s speculation, thoughts on where he could be, but that hasn’t happened since Ned slipped into pent-up frustration and said he didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was the first fight he ever had with MJ, with any friend, really. When he told his Nanay about the fight, she shrugged and said, “Buhay lang yan, anak _._ ”

But how can his Nanay explain that his other best friend garnering a bounty on his head is _just life?_ She could never understand even if she tried. She could barely understand his homework growing up, or the documents that they had to sign to get Ned into Midtown Tech. 

He doesn’t blame her, not at all. 

Especially when she knocks on her door every night without fail, letting him know in her soft, comforting voice that she’s made another one of his favorite dishes. 

They didn’t always eat sinigang or nilaga or any other Filipino food every night because his Tatay’s heart can no longer handle the pork, so they’ve all promised to eat healthier. But Nanay always makes Filipino food on special occasions, or nights she could tell were a little harder for Ned—when he got his first C on an AP test, the night before his first SAT’s, or the weeks he spent in recovery when he broke his leg freshman year. 

Lately, she’s been making Filipino food every night.

This time, when she knocks on the door, Ned mutes his microphone and asks, “Can MJ come over for dinner?” 

Nanay purses her lips, arms crossed in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Didn’t the Happy guy say not to talk to her outside of school?”

“Ma, I haven’t talked to anyone in an entire month.”

She lingers around for a beat until he catches her searching his eyes. He looks down. She sighs and says, “Bahala na. Tell her to come.”

He smiles as Nanay closes the door softly behind him, unmuting his chat as he asks, “MJ, do you like pancit?”

MJ shows up at his apartment shortly, only being a few blocks away. She curls the corner of her lips and greets his family for the first time in months, the last time she came over was before the snap when she, Peter, and Ned had a group project. 

But his parents hold their arms open, pulling her in a hug that she immediately sinks into, closing her eyes as she squeezes tightly. Ned grins, waiting to hug her, too.

“Now I know why you give such great hugs,” MJ laughs, slipping away from his arms before they head over to the dinner table. “Thanks for dinner, Ned.”

She thanks his parents too, and waves hello to his little sister as she hesitantly approaches MJ. 

“Hey, Nicole.”

“Hi,” she giggles and runs to her favorite spot at the table. 

When they gather together, Tatay leads a prayer. He praises God for bringing a bountiful meal to the table, he takes note of their healthiness and success, and he prays for Peter to come home soon. 

“Amen,” Ned says as he listens to MJ echo after him. 

At first, dinner is quiet, save for Nicole talking about her day at school and the clatter of silverware.

Then, Nanay starts asking questions. “So do you miss Peter?”

“Ma,” Ned warns her, feeling his face heat up from embarrassment. When the news broke out, the entire city found out. Ned’s family are the only people who immediately believed it was a lie; they almost didn’t think Peter was even Spider-Man until Ned told the truth. And now, whenever his parents get the chance, they want to know _everything_.

MJ places a hand softly on Ned’s. “I do. I–um–I’ve been thinking about going to him a lot.”

“Wow,” Nanay says, chuckling. “Ang lakas si MJ.” 

“Strong,” he whispers to her, and MJ smiles. 

“Dangerous though,” Tatay says, humming as he spins his fork into the pancit. “Don’t know where he is.”

“Actually–” MJ starts as Ned’s eyes widen “–yeah. It’s hard. The whole city feels like it’s at a civil war. And it’s even harder knowing it’s about your boyfriend.”

Nanay nods. “I heard about the protests. Ned told me you organize them?”

“I do,” she smiles. “With Peter’s aunt. We don’t go, though. We–we can’t. We might get in trouble, so May asks her co-coordinators at F.E.A.S.T. to lead them.”

“Parang ang revolution ito, ha,” Tatay laughs, then he faces MJ. “The Philippines knows a lot about rebellion.”

“Really?” MJ asks, tilting her head. 

“We suffered from years of war,” he says, knuckling tightening on the table, and the pain in his muscles sends shivers down Ned’s spine. “We’re known to be a resilient people.”

“Full of love,” Nanay adds. 

“Resilience is overrated,” Ned mumbles under his breath, his chest about to break. 

“Ano yan, anak?” 

“Nothing,” he says. 

“Anyway,” Tatay says, grabbing a cup of water and taking a sip before speaking again. “Resistance is in our blood, has been for years. Even when we moved here more than a decade ago to give more opportunity to Ned.”

Ned grins. “I know.”

“That’s amazing,” MJ says. “Sounds like you have it in you to do what’s right against the odds.”

“MJ…”

“Please, Ned.”

“What?” Nanay asks, a stern tone in her voice that makes Ned straighten his posture at the dinner table. 

He feels MJ’s elbow against him. “We want to look for Peter.”

“Ned,” Nanay says. 

“You said it yourself, Ma,” Ned says. “We’re being strong for wanting this.”

“But Tatay said it’s dangerous.” 

He looks at his Tatay, eyes big and begging. “We miss Peter. We just want to see him. What if he needs help? What if he can’t do this on his own?” 

MJ apologizes under her breath for bringing anything up, but Ned waves it off. He was meant to ask eventually. Peter needs help, and Ned knows he and MJ are the right people to be there for him because no one can start a revolution on their own.

Ned bites the inside of his cheek, debating whether or not to say anything else, but the feeling of dread comes back at his throat reminding him that Peter’s all by himself. “I’m not going to just be gone tomorrow. It’s just a maybe. Once we track him down, I mean. You know I can do it.”

“Ned is good at computers!” Nicole says, breaking the tension with her cheery, hopeful voice. “Find Peter!”

“Nicole,” Nanay says, calming her down.

Ned holds his stare with his Tatay, and then he hears, “Bahala ka sa buhay mo.”

The answer is sharp. Ned knows it doesn’t mean yes, and he knows that if he _does_ seek Peter’s location, he can come back in big trouble—more trouble than he might even be in if he gets caught by the enemies. 

But Ned takes it as a yes anyway. He has to. 

He loves his best friend, and he needs to be strong. 

For himself, for MJ, and for Peter. 


End file.
